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EDITOR'S
VIEWPOINT
A
favourite of the befuddled
We
are just a few months into the year and already the promise
of better times for all that arose when Trevor Manuel cut
the tax bill of every employee has evaporated. Interest rates
have gone up and may go up again; some employers and pension
fund administrators have still not passed on the tax cuts
to their staff and pensioners; the petrol price has soared
to record levels; banks, financial institutions and brokers
are finding new ways of ripping off their customers (and those
that can't, just shut their doors); anyone who can persuade
anyone to sign a debit order is likely to regard that person's
bank account as his own; and now all employees are obliged
to hand over some of their hard-earned salaries on which they
have already paid tax to the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
Essentially,
any extra money that the average restaurant customer might
have had to spend when Manuel announced his tax cuts with
effect from March 1 has been spent on keeping up with the
cost of living. And restaurateurs tell Hotel & Restaurant
that they see food inflation as a giant problem over the next
few months. The cost of imported supplies for hotels and restaurants
has soared since the collapse of the rand at the end of last
year. And, if all this were not bad enough, more job losses
in South Africa's private sector are being predicted.
Much
of the good work that Trevor Manuel tried to do has been undone.
Through the sin of omission, his cabinet colleagues are to
blame for at least some of the problems that confront the
country, but, be that as it may, more belt-tightening in the
months ahead seems unavoidable.
At
the rate discretional spending money is shrinking for South
African consumers, hotels and restaurants may soon be forced
to set up the differential or multi-tiered pricing system
favoured by the befuddled if they wish to see any local customers
at all.
With
all this in mind and to lighten the gloom that is descending
on the industry, Hotel & Restaurant this month presents
a tongue-in-cheek guide to spotting a foreign tourist so that
it becomes easier to charge him or her more.
The
intention of what some may see as not very PC in parts is
to put the lid for all time on the notion that foreign tourists
should be milked to subsidise domestic tourists. If the perception
arises that South Africa is doing this, we'll run into a whole
stack of new problems. There is no quick fix solution to the
problems of the South African consumer, and using the money
of foreign tourists to subsidise them is not the answer. To
anyone who is offended by some of the content from page 14
onwards we apologise in advance.
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